The Last Post for 2009!

What a brilliant year that was. Honestly, it was one of the more sober years I have had. Nothing major happened, no life changing events, relatively simple and easy. It drifted past us and I thank God for that. Because, I totally did not enjoy 2008 and was hoping for a year like what 2009 turned out to be.

I really cannot even list out what all happened like I did last year. I hated 2008 and the numerous hospital visits and the inumerous health issues. I liked the change in the pace of 2009. Today I feel more mature, and also more experienced in life to handle the sudden crap it can throw at you and change your life completely. And also, I am older now. I am slowly but steadily climbing into the thirties and I am trying not to let that change the way I think. But life goes on and time does not stop.

So to recap real fast, We returned from CA in January 2009. Fun-est trip ever.

Federer Won Australian Open early February. Babs got her baby cousin from G's brother and wife. Anya. Really cute.

Anitha (Babs old baby sitter) went to India in March and we had to get her a new baby sitter in the form of Pooja.

April sucked because my uncle passed away. Riyansh was born to another friend S.

I passed my LEED Certification in May.

I visited my parents at their home in Chattanooga in June. Babs also pooped in the potty first time in June. We also planted a garden in June and was in full bloom with tons of flower and also green bell peppers.

In July we welcomed our in-laws and also saw Sonu and others perform live on stage.

In August G and I celebrated our nine years of knowing/dating each other.

September saw my two BFF's getting married. It was a beautiful wedding but it was also the day I did my biggest clumsy ever.

In October both Babs and G turned a year older. Babs was two and G was well OLD :P...I partied with both of them and hopefully they will both remember it.

November my in-laws went back to India.

December my parents came and visited us for a week and it was super fun. I got to stay home and relax with them. My friend MB had her twins, a girl (Manya) and a boy (Neev). Super cute. My ex-baby sitter Pooja also had her baby daughter (Sai Gayathri).

So there, though not much, I had something to do every month. So life did not slow down completely. Every weekend was busy meeting friends, doing stuff, parties, etc. My only mission for 2009 is to make as many mommy friends as possible so my daughter can have play dates and such. Especially during winters when I cannot take her to the play ground we feel so bored and holed inside our home.

Resolution time: I am not into making resolutions because I learned very early on that I suck at keeping up any of those resolutions. But this year I am going to try.

1. To loose all my prego weight. Ya Babs is 2+ now and I am still as fat as I was when I got prego. A lot of my friends who met me after I had Babs or during my prego tell me that I look fine and all that. But they have not seem the 20 pound lighter me and I cannot explain to them how much it hurts to not get into my favorite tees or pants. Anyway. I have to do it this year.
2. To eat less sugar.

I will add more to the list as time flies by.

To everyone reading this blog A Very Happy 2010.

Love

ART

I am not lazy

Just been busy! Really hectic weekends and weekdays.

I loved Thanksgiving Weekend. It was fun. Four days, at home, with Babs and my husband's family. We did little and took good rest. Well, not really.

My SIL and I went shopping at 12.00am on Black Friday. It was super fun. We shopped a little but what we actually enjoyed was relaxing and going to a mall without the kids and buying stuff for ourselves for a change. It was good fun. We also followed it up early in the morning to go shopping at Macy's. All in all, I blew up quite a bit of our $$ and G was super upset that I only spent $20 for him.

One of the days when it was nice and 70 degs outside, we went to Lake Texoma. We got lost on our way there. So we kind of bungled around and landed up at this local Cajun restaurant. The hostess there was super nice. She helped us find out way back and also helped me find a place to ride horses. I was super excited.

We went to the horse riding place and learnt that we would each be given a horse to ride on, we will have a guide and it was a one hour tour in a 200 acre farm. I was really worried if Babs would get on a horse with G. She is afraid of the little horsie toys in the malls and play areas. So I was concerned. But she was a super sport. Mounted the horse with daddy and sang songs all through the trail.

G even galloped a bit but the rest of us stuck to a canter at best. The trail was super fun, lots of trees, and we all had brilliant horses that showed the best time. I want to do it again and if you live in Texas and want to go horse riding, ping me and I will give you contact info for Andy.

After the quick update I have to sign off. It will be two weeks before I ping back. Too much work and parents will be in town for a week. So until then...ciao :)

love

ART

Kick!

And I want to write something down. I am tired. Babs is sick again. I have a dentist appointment and life goes on.

I made breakfast this morning for work. It was my turn for the breakfast club at work. I made a frittata and a huge fruit bowl. I will put the recipe for the frittata on the girlsgonecookin.wordpress.com website soon. I made one mid-size tray and two mini ones. I sent one with G for his work, kept one for safety and the mid-size one and fruit bowl came to work with me. All is well.

I almost took the day off this morning because Babs had a fever the whole night but both her baby sitter and G told me not to worry about it unless the temperature runs high. AG, my colleague picked up the breakfast for me from home while I dropped Babs and came to work.

Like everyone wants to know how sucky my day was.

Anyways, I am watching the Telugu movie Kick, finally. I say finally because there is a funny story.

I do not know to read or write Telugu. I can only speak the language and I love the language but cannot write it. Dad tried three times to teach me and all three times I did not go past A and Aa. Learning to write Tamil was a necessity because I lived in Chennai but Telugu was just a luxury which I could live without happily.

Anyway, coming back to my story. I went to the store, asked for Kick, the guy handed me a DVD that said Kick written on it. Came home, saw the movie, it was decent, time pass and I was happy that I had seen the very popular movie.

Next day, I am talking to another Telugu friend to whom I proudly mentioned that I saw Kick and it was decent. He asked me, "so you like Ravi Teja?"

"No, I think he is ugly and old. But how does that matter, Kick has Allu Arjun in it."

He laughed and said, "nope, Kick has RT in it and Illeana."

I argued saying that he saw the wrong movie, "I should know, I saw the movie."

"What is the story."

I told him the synopsis.

"That movie is Parugu."

I was stunned. I had seen an entire movie thinking it was another movie. Had only I known to read Telugu, this mistake could have been averted, although I always fast forward the first 10 minutes. I was super embarrassed. I went to the store and demanded a return.

So, I am half way through watching Kick. I still cannot stand Ravi Teja. He is way too ugly, and old and Illeana is cute and such a mismatch for him. So when I finish it off, I will write more on the movie.

I have few other movies to watch over the weekend and hopefully I will have enough time. This is the first weekend in many when I have absolutely no plans and hopefully I will make the best use of it. Also, I pray and hope that Babs will get better soon and that I can take her out tomorrow if the weather permits.

With all that said.

I am signing off

ART

Taggggggg

So Megha put me up for this foodie tag. Yes, the truth is I love to eat although I hate to pay more attention to how it is made unless it takes less than 10 minutes to prepare a dish. And almost all my memories of good food is from my amma's kitchen and my growing up days...

• Deepavali mornings when my mom used to make Idli/dosa and Vadakari for breakfast. You should eat it once to know how yummy it is. I remember smelling the yummy Vadakari (the smell of cilantro and cloves) when you walk into the house after a fresh round of bursting crackers on the street.

• Krishna Jayanthi. Mom made boat loads of food for this day. More so on the line of sweets. It would range from laddu, murukku, sweet seedai, spicy seedai, thattai, somas, karasev, karaboondi, golbela, diamond cuts, mixture, etc. She used to at least make 13 items every Krishna jayanthi. Her preps for this festival would start a week ahead and she would cook these items and hide them from us because she did not want us to eat up everything before the festival itself. Every evening when I came back home from school I could smell what she had prepared and it would make me go hungry instantly. Mom always saved up some scraps for all of us to eat up in the evening...miss those days.

• I remember the days when we used to go to the pool during summer vacation, spend an entire noon there. Get tired and hungry instantly. Dad would buy us goldspot or some soda at the club and then buy us either bonda from the club or mom would have made fresh bread bajji's for us...those used to taste like nectar. My brothers and I would gobble them up as soon as they got out of the frying oil. Bread bajji and sauce, bonda and chutney, just plain ol' bajji and chutney...my childhood.

• This is going to sound weird, but the first time I ate Rajma made by G during our K-State days. I had never eaten that bean before ever. And when I came home from a tiring day at school, I gobbled up on this dish and then learned to cook it too. Later I cooked it so much that I began to hate it and quit eating it for almost three years. Now I cook it once in a while.

• Then Kandha Poha and chai for breakfast that G makes on Saturdays...yummm...he makes the best breakfast ever, er...he cooks the best ever next only to my amma.

Ok Tag time...Sum, Puja, Shilpa, Vimmmu, Arshiya...go on take it up...write it down.

Love

ART

Finally...

A long hiatus and I am back...I just could not get myself to write stuff here anymore. On top of it I am still contemplating a move to Wordpress. I just like so many things there that are not here in Blogspot. It is like Blogspot on steroids. But, then it is my first blog and it is close to my heart. It would feel like leaving my home for another one. A home I created with these two hands (literally) to another one. Although, I just might move...don't we all make changes for convenience???

Anyways, topic at hand. So the weekend of Deepavali was hectic. All three days. No kidding.

Babs turned two On Oct 17th. I could not believe it. I still cannot believe that she talks to me in perfectly understandable language. She tells me stories and gives me explanations. She is a little adult already. Feels like yesterday. Time sure flies when you are busy with life. And boy, was I busy!!!

For her birthday this year, we, as in G, his mom, me and Babs went to the aquarium. She had fun seeing the different animals in the rain forest zoo and then seeing her favorite fishes!! I am sure we will go there again probably next year.

Then on the next day, we had a small party at Chuck E Cheese for her and her kiddie friends. I decided that this year, I will not put all my friends with no kids through the misery of attending a kiddie party and pretending to enjoy it. So it was just Babs and six other kids and whose parents were also happy to get their toddlers out for a fun Sunday evening. I had fun and I hope others did too and that was day 3 of a very long weekend!

Oh! I did not tell you what we did on Day 1 right? Friday night I organized and threw this party for G's birthday. It was a surprise party. He did not have an idea about it and all he knew was that we were going to a friend's house for Deepavali dinner. Closer towards the party he started smelling something fishy but he was surprised and happy nevertheless. His mom offered to keep the little one at home so that mom and dad could get drunk, dance and party while the baby was kept safe sleeping on her own bed with her grandma.

We got back home around 4.00 in the morning and wished the little devil for her birthday. It was perfect. The weather, the brat and all of us together.

So ya...that was a helluva packed weekend. Actually all our weekends since the third weekend of September has been packed. It will be a packed one coming up too. I am hoping that we are a little chilled out next week. But honestly, I wont complain. Having family and friends around shows me that the beautiful Indian network of support system still exists, even though in small part there is always someone to help you out.

With that said, I would like to sign off on this beautiful Friday evening. See y'all around the corner soon.

Yours

ART